Home
More than ever I realize that home is not where the house is nor is it where the heart resides. For me, home is where it is that I measure life with a yardstick of simple moments and where it is that I can close my eyes and not have missed anything because what happens in my home includes me and begs me to join and enjoy the laughter and endure the pains of life in that place. Home is where it is not perfect and by nature of this imperfection helps me to know that perfection is difficult to achieve and while it may never enter into view, I am looking out of a different window so it matters not. If (as it is often said) a life-long partner would be my other half, then home is the other half where my partner and I would dwell and this is never made of bricks and sticks.

My home is Aruba and I am assured of this more so day by day. Yet it should be clear that I am a traveller and my eyes will wander the streets on this big blue marble as long as time allows. I can do so in comfort because I am diamond-clear positive in knowing where my true “Home” is. My home is where the white sands are filled with browning bodies that have homes elsewhere, yet come to my humble home to baste themselves in a place they call “Home away from Home”. I travelled with my boy to lands where massive buildings created steel-cacti silhouettes against the night sky and other places where a soft murmuring sound came from water as it flowed down mountainsides and bathed our ears into slumber. I will be eternally grateful for having walked streets where couples snuggled as they walked and where (in seeing that) they reminded me of children holding the hands of their parents as they waddled for the first time on the soft powdery beaches of my home.

My home is a small and rather shy little place on this orb and it amazes me as to how many visitors ask about the possibilities of moving and living here – oddly those that are rooted here do not tend to ask that question when roaming the planet, at least I don’t. That is a lie – I asked that question when I was on an extended vacation on the island of Hydra (Greece) where things just sort of fell into place nicely but it was a short lived thing. No – my home is Aruba and it is where I want to be laid to rest someday. There is an excitement about being a part of this small islands earth that intrigues me. Odd.

Home on Aruba is the sound of children at the beach and watching them look upwards to the silver monsters carrying our many returning visitors. Home is their parents watching yet daring to give them the freedom to escape down the beach (under careful watching eyes) and understanding the responsibility of letting kids grow. Home is the dog that sits by the water bowl at the beach with sand on its nose, almost as if it had stuck its head into a milk bottle. Home is more. Home is a man that lives on a hill and desperately looks to the winding road for a visitor to hear his words, after all – that is all he has anymore. Home is the sound of craziness that comes from wildly painted school buses that romp through the island in the night, all the while the passengers dance and sing to songs they never heard before.

I have tried to tell others about my home. In written and spoken words but have failed miserably and perhaps that is good. My son tells me that home is when he smells my neck at night and that he doesn’t mind my snoring. He is blinded and I know his home will grow beyond those father and son moments - and it saddens me in a glad manner.

Home is not where the house is nor is it where the heart resides. For me, home is where it is that I measure life with a yardstick of simple moments and bathe in its imperfection.

Charles, once again your wonderful words enchant me, and bring tears to my eyes. I am one of the people who come to your humble home to "baste" in my home away from home. (God willing I will be basting for one month, beginning next Saturday). How great it is that you still feel the excitement of being a part of Aruba. Thank you Charles.